Across China on Foot eBook

Twenty-five li farther we reached Kan-lan-chai (4,800
feet), February 9th, 1910, New Year’s morning.
Nothing could be bought. Everywhere the people
said, “Puh mai, puh mai,” and although
we had traveled the twenty-five li over a terrible
road, with a fearful gradient at the end, we could
not get anyone to make tea for us. It is distinctly
against the Chinese custom to sell anything at New
Year time, of course. We had to boil our own
water and make our own tea. A larger crowd than
usual gathered around me because of the general holiday;
and as I write now I am seated in my folding-chair
with all the reprobates near to me—­men
gazing emptily, women who have rushed from their houses
combing their hair and nursing their babies, the beggars
with their poles and bowls, numberless urchins, all
open-mouthed and curious. These are kept from
crowding over me by the two soldiers, who the day before
had come on ahead to book rooms in the place.
I stayed at Kan-lan-chai on another occasion.
Then I found a good room, but later learned that it
was a horse inn, the yard of which was taken up by
fifty-nine pack animals with their loads. Pegs
were as usual driven into the ground in parallel rows,
a pair of ponies being tied to each—­not
by the head, but by the feet, a nine-inch length of
rope being attached to the off foreleg of one and
the near foreleg of the other, the animals facing each
other in rows, and eating from a common supply in
the center. Everyone in the small town was busy
doing and driving, very anxious that I should be made
comfortable, which might have been the case but for
some untiring musician who was traveling with the
caravan, and seemed to be one of that species of humankind
who never sleeps. His notes, however, were fairly
in harmony, but when it runs on to 3:00 a.m., and one
knows that he has to be again on the move by five,
even first-rate Chinese music is apt to be somewhat
disturbing.

From the Salwen-Shweli watershed I got a fine view
of the mountains I had crossed yesterday. Some
ten miles or so to the north was the highest peak
in the range—­Kao-li-kung I think it is called—­conical-shaped
and clear against the sky, and some 13,000 feet high,
so far as I could judge.

An easy stage brought me to Tengyueh. I stayed
here a day only, Mr. Embery, of the China Inland Mission,
a countryman of my own, kindly putting me up.
But Tengyueh, as one of the quartet of open ports in
the province, is well known. It is only a small
town, however, and one was surprised to find it as
conservative a town as could be found anywhere in
the province, despite the fact that foreigners have
been here for many years, and at the present time
there are no less than seven Europeans here.